February 2020 Update

Revision History

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:

Date	Feature	Notes
30 JAN 2020		Created initial document.

Overview

This document outlines the upcoming Strategic Workforce Planning Cloud update.

Feature Summary

Strategic Workforce Planning Cloud

Monthly Update Schedule

Oracle will apply the latest monthly updates to your Test environments during the first daily maintenance that occurs at or after 23:00 UTC (15:00 PST) on Friday, February 7, 2020. Oracle will apply the latest monthly updates to your Production environments during the first daily maintenance that occurs at or after 23:00 UTC (15:00 PST) on Friday, February 21, 2020.

The Oracle Help Center provides access to updated documentation. The updates will be available in the Help Center on Friday, February 7, 2020. Some of the links to new feature documentation included in this readiness document will not work until after the Oracle Help Center update is complete.

NOTE: Backing up the daily maintenance snapshot and restoring the environment as needed are self-service operations. Oracle recommends that you download the maintenance snapshot every day to a local server.

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https://cloud.oracle.com/community

NOTE: The Settings and Actions menu now contains a link to Cloud Customer Connect. To access this link, from the Home page, click the down arrow next to the user name (in the upper right-hand corner of the screen), and select Cloud Customer Connect.

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We welcome your comments and suggestions to improve the content of the What's New document and the product documentation. Please send us your feedback at EPMdoc_ww@oracle.com. In the body or title of the email, state that you are inquiring or providing feedback, and indicate for which EPM Cloud service and the monthly update cycle.

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Managing Data with the EPM Integration Agent

Learn how to manage data with the EPM Integration Agent. You download and install the agent. You start the agent which registers it to the cloud. You run a script which calls the agent which in turn calls the external API and then prepares a file for the EPM Integration Agent to pick up. Finally, you run an integration which uploads the data to EPM Cloud.

Features

Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser)

A new version of Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser) is available. This version includes support for the Planning approvals process, importing metadata, and a new form option, Repeat Member Labels.

• Planning Approvals

Use Smart View (Mac and Browser) to complete tasks in the Planning approvals process, including changing planning unit status, annotating planning units, viewing the promotional path of a planning unit, and delegating tasks with Out of Office Assistant.

A Service Administrator sets up approvals in Planning, which then becomes available to Smart View users.

• Import Metadata

With the Import Metadata command, available in the ribbon, you can import metadata consisting of Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser) artifacts such as the POV, alias tables, and connection information, into copied worksheets.

• Repeat Member Labels Options

Enable this option to facilitate the readability of forms by allowing member names to appear on each row of data. This option appears in the Formatting tab of the Options panel. No setup is required to enable this option.

Steps to Enable

For Planning Approvals and Import Metadata, a new manifest file must be created and deployed.

1. Create a new manifest file and customize it per your requirements
2. Deploy the manifest file to Office 365 users

See these topics in Deploying and Administering Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser):

• Creating and Saving the Manifest File
• Customizing the Manifest File (optional)
• Deploying the Manifest File to Office 365 Users

For Planning Approvals, a Service Administrator must set up approvals in Planning.

For the Repeat Member Labels option, there is nothing to enable and an updated manifest file is not required. The option will appear automatically in the Options panel, Formatting tab.

Key Resources

• Working with Oracle Smart View for Office (Mac and Browser):
  • Planning Approvals
  • Importing Metadata
  • Formatting Options

• Managing Approvals in Administering Planning

New Version of EPM Automate

A new version of EPM Automate is now available. This version contains new commands (AddUsertoGroups, RemoveUserFromGroups, ExportDimension, ExportDimensionMapping, ImportDimension, RunComplianceReport, and RunMatchingReport), as well as changes to some existing commands (ImportTmPremappedTransactions, Feedback, and Recreate). Additionally, starting with this version, all command parameter names have been made case-insensitive.

NEW COMMANDS

New Commands for All Services

• AddUsertoGroups: Adds a user to existing groups in Access Control using an ANSI or UTF-8 encoded CSV file that was uploaded to the environment.
• RemoveUserFromGroups: Removes the membership of a user from the Access Control groups identified in an ANSI or UTF-8 encoded CSV file.

CHANGES TO EXISTING COMMANDS

• ImportTmPremappedTransactions: The importTmPremappedTransactions command, which applies to Account Reconciliation only, has been enhanced to support many date formats. This command now supports DD-MMM-YYYY, MM/dd/yyyy, dd/MM/yyyy, MM-dd-yyyy, d-M-yyyy, and MMM d.yyyy. Previously, this command supported only DD-MMM-YYYY as the date format.

• Feedback: The feedback command has been enhanced to accept the file optional parameter, which allows you to upload files while submitting feedback to Oracle. You can use this parameter to submit EPM Automate scripts and Fiddler traces to Oracle to help resolve the issue for which you are submitting the feedback.

Key Resources

• Working with EPM Automate for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud
  • Installing EPM Automate
  • EPM Automate Commands

New Start Date for Workforce Requires You to Run a Rule After Update

In Workforce, both 12-month and 13-period planning applications now produce more accurate calculations based on the new Start Date data. Salary and other percentage value type compensation calculations are prorated for the first month or period in which an employee becomes active. You can load the Hire Date as the Start Date for existing employees, and calculations are then based on the Start Date instead of the Start Month.

After updating content, all existing customers must run a one-time rule called 1X Populate New Properties to derive the Start Dates based off of Start Month. 

Immediately after updating the February 2020 content, you must run the new rule 1X Populate New Properties to convert existing Start Month data to the Start Date account. Run this rule only once for each Scenario and Version combination with data, immediately after updating content. Specify only Scenario and Version combinations whose data you want to recalculate. For example, you may not want to recalculate historical data.

NOTE: If you don’t run this rule immediately after updating, the consequence of running any rules is the possibility of losing some data. If you inadvertently run rules before running 1X Populate New Properties, run 1X - Populate New Properties and then rerun the rules that you previously ran.

For optimum performance, before running 1xPopulate New Properties, change the FIX Parallel dimension to use the dimension that is appropriate to parallelize the process by moving the dimension from FIX statement to FIX Parallel and move the entity member selection to FIX statement in the place of the dimension that's moved to FIX Parallel statement. This change needs to be made in OWP_Populate New Properties_T template in Calculation Manager. Save the changes and then deploy the OWP_Populate New Properties rule.

Steps to Enable

Immediately after updating the Workforce February 2020 content, from the Home page, click Rules, go to 1X Populate New Properties and click Launch.

Run this rule only once for each Scenario and Version combination with data, immediately after updating content. Specify only Scenario and Version combinations whose data you want to recalculate.

Key Resources

• Post Update Tasks in Administering Planning Modules

New Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud Extracts Available in Data Management

New Assignment Start Date and Assignment Job Effective Start Date columns have been added to the HCM extracts. An updated extract definition file is included in this update and you should import the new definitions in HCM.

Key Resources

• Updating Existing Oracle HCM Cloud Extracts  in Administering Data Management for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Service Instance Names Removed from Role Names Displayed in Access Control

Starting with this update, the predefined role names (Service Administrator, Power User, User, and Viewer) displayed in Access Control screens and reports will no longer be prepended with the service instance name.

Previously, Access Control screens (for example, the Manage Groups screen) and reports (for example, the Role Assignment Report) displayed the names of predefined  identity domain roles as groups in <service-name> <role name> format. For example, the User predefined role was displayed as Example User where Example is a service name. Starting with this release, only the role name will be displayed.

Export Data and Export Metadata Jobs Now Support User-Defined Export File Names

You can now specify a unique output file name for each Planning metadata and data export job. Using unique file names for each export job enables you to use the same job definition but schedule different jobs to execute at different times with different file names.

To specify unique file names, from the job scheduler’s job listing, click the edit icon next to the selected job and specify the output file name with a zip extension. You can verify the export file name on the final review page before you finish defining the job. The unique file name will override the default export file name when the job runs.

Key Resources

• Scheduling Jobs in Administering Planning

Export Data Now Supports Substitution Variables

The Planning Export Data definition now supports substitution variables. You can select substitution variables from the Member Selector in the Data Export definition.

Key Resources

• Exporting Data and Creating and Assigning Values to Substitution Variables in Administering Planning

Export Data Now Supports Decimal Scale

In Planning Export Data jobs, you can now specify the number of decimal positions (0-16) that will be returned when exporting data from Essbase. If the default None is selected, the data that is returned will not be formatted and will return as Essbase returns it. Selecting a numeric value will result in the exported data displaying that number of digits to the right of the decimal point, wherever applicable. For example, specifying 3 in the Decimals field will result in the exported data being formatted to display three digits to the right of the decimal point. Selecting 0 formats the data to display a whole number.

Key Resources

• Exporting Data in Administering Planning

Batch Processing Enhancement in Data Management

In Data Management, you can create a batch that includes data load rules from a different target application. You might use this feature when you want to use a batch that loads both metadata and data, or to create a batch of batches with one batch for metadata and another batch for data. Prior to this update, you could not create a batch that included rules from a different target application.

Key Resources

• Working with Metadata Batch Definitions in Administering Data Management for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Fusion Web Services URL Address Change in Data Management

The format of the Web Services URL to the Oracle Financials Cloud for integrations has been modified so that you only need to include the server information. Pre-existing URL formats will be updated automatically during the upgrade.

Key Resources

• Configuring a Source Connection in Administering Data Management for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Update Inbox Files with Data Management Using REST APIs and EPM Automate

You can now import data files from the EPM Inbox accessible from the Applications-Inbox/Outbox Explorer. When using Groovy business rules to export data, the data files are created in this folder. You can reference the files in this folder using #epminbox/<filename>. The #epminbox can be used when submitting the data rule using REST API or EPM Automate.

Key Resources

• Data Management REST APIs in REST API for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Role Information

• Service Administrators

Reset the Service and Include a Comment Using REST APIs

When resetting the service with REST APIs, you can now include a comment about the reset. This helps you communicate with users.

Key Resources

• Restart the Service in REST API for Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Role Information

• Service Administrators

Use REST APIs to Import and Update Exchange Rates

You can now use REST APIs to export the Import Exchange Rates template in the Planning repository and change the rates if required. You can then import the rates into the application using the Import Exchange Rates settings specified in a Planning job of type import exchange rates. You can also override some of the parameters of the job definition while executing this job from a REST API. This gives you more flexibility with updating exchange rates.

Key Resources

• Manage Jobs in REST API for Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

Role Information

• Service Administrators

Upcoming Changes

NEW CLOUD INTERFACE

In a future update, there will be a revised interface with enhanced navigation and a new theme called Sky Blue.

The revised interface retains existing functionality and enhances your experience with a more modern look and feel and responsive design. The Welcome Panel and the Global Header readjust after resizing, which means less scrolling. An updated Welcome Panel features Announcements and Notifications. Arrows are available on the Home Page to help you navigate easily between the Springboard and infolet dashboard pages. A bigger Navigator Menu has improved usability, more themes for customization are included, and a bigger work area has more space to maneuver and provide better visibility. The interface is also more consistent with other Oracle products, such as Fusion Applications.

After the interface is released, all new customers will use the new lighter-colored Sky Blue theme, and existing customers will keep their current theme. You can switch themes using Tools, and then Appearance.

PLANNER ROLE TO BE RENAMED AS USER

In an upcoming update, Oracle will rename the Planner EPM Cloud predefined role as User. This change will have no functional effect.

Subscriptions that were provisioned prior to the May 2016 update used the Planner role, which has been maintained in subsequent updates to provide continuity. In subscriptions that were activated after May 2016, the Planner role was already replaced by the User role.

NOTE: This change will affect Planning, Financial Consolidation and Close, and Tax Reporting only.

PREDEFINED ROLE NAMES AS EPM CLOUD KEY WORDS

Starting with an update in the near future, Oracle plans to treat the following predefined role names as EPM Cloud key words, which should not be used in the name of any custom artifacts that you create; for example, as a group name in Access Control.

• Service Administrator
• Power User
• User
• Viewer
• Planner
• System Administrator
• Application Administrator
• Library Administrator
• Reports Administrator

If you have any groups or artifacts named using these keywords, Oracle requests that you rename or delete them; else Oracle will rename them to ensure that there is no impact because of this change. For example, a group named Power User will be renamed as Power User1 without affecting the current role assignments. If you do not want Oracle to automatically rename such groups, you must rename them.

This change is being implemented to address customer feedback. If you have any concerns about this change, please contact Oracle Support.

Key Resources

• Modifying Groups in Administering Access Control for Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud

UPDATE TO THE EXCEPTION RESPONSE IN REST APIS FOR PLANNING AND PLANNING MODULES

Oracle will remove the internal package and class names from the following fields in the exception response in REST APIs for Planning and Planning modules in an upcoming update in early 2020:

• message
• localizedMessage

QUERY GOVERNOR ON BSO AND ASO CUBES

In a future update, Oracle will add a query governor on Essbase block storage and aggregate storage cubes to guard against excessive server load created unintentionally by running ad hoc queries that take a very long time to complete. The new governor will limit all queries to a maximum of 30 minutes execution time. This governor affects only retrieval of data, for example, Smart View ad hoc queries, web and Smart View forms, and reports. It does not affect business rules.

NOTE: This feature change affects Planning, Financial Consolidation and Close, Tax Reporting, and Profitability and Cost Management only.